Arnie, Mervin, & The Blood of Kings

by Pedliham, Luke

The object shrinks back to the size of a normal marble and Mervin simply pops it back into his pocket. Arnie looks up at Mervin and says;

  “Whoa! What was that? Have you drugged me or something? I’ve seen James Bond. You coated the ball thing with some kind of hallucinogen that gets into your system through the skin right? How long do I have to…..”

  Mervin laughs and holds his hand up to Arnie to stop him from speaking.

  “No Arnie. I can assure you that I have not drugged you yet, but I am glad you have at least seen a Bond film, unless of course it happens to be a Daniel Craig one. Say what you will about the realism etc - but he’s no Timothy Dalton! Anyway, what just happened….what you just saw - was the past, the present and the future all at once. You had both a dream and a nightmare,…a premonition of sorts you might say. You experienced happiness, sadness, love and hate all at the same time. This will make no sense to you right now and will serve only to send you cross-eyed but such is the nature of the thing. I know you’re confused by it all but try to keep your mind open. And anyway, all of the others that came before you were confused as well at first. Things will become clear given time, you’ll see.”

  As Mervin finishes he turns back to the selection of mini foods that are laid out on the table. As he pops a mini quiche into his bearded trap Arnie asks;

  “Others? What others? And wait….hold on, what do you mean you haven’t drugged me YET??”

  Mervin’s eyes flick to Arnie and then quickly back to the food.

  “It was just a figure of speech Arnie! Don’t be so paranoid.” he says;

  Arnie nods to acknowledge this but squints in an obviously untrusting manner. Something Mervin chooses to ignore.

  “So Arnie…” says Mervin as he wipes his mouth free of pastry;

  “The burning question is - do you want to know more?”

  Mervin looks at Arnie intensely, as if a great deal rides on his answer.

  “Yeah, I do actually. Let’s start with when and how you intend to drug me?” he replies sharply.

  Mervin smiles and says;

  “I’ll take that as a yes then. Here, hold this….”

  Mervin tries to hand Arnie the incredible growing marble once again but Arnie is now wise to it.

  “Oh no!” he says defiantly;

  “I’m not putting that thing in my hands again. I don’t want any more of your crazy hippy drugs in me thanks!”

  “Crazy hippy? I told you I hadn’t drugged you!”

  “You said YET. You haven’t drugged me YET! The yet was right there at the end of the sentence. Yet being the operative word! It implies that you do intend to drug me at some point,….right?”

  Mervin laughs and shakes his head;

  “You really do have an eclectic vocabulary for a teenager don’t you? And they think you don’t pay attention in class…..”

  “It’s not that I don’t pay attention to what’s being taught in class, it’s more that I don’t pay attention to the people who are teaching it.” replies Arnie belligerently.

  Mervin looks back at Arnie, who just shrugs his shoulders and looks to the floor disappointedly. Mervin chuckles endearingly, places his hand on Arnie’s shoulder and says;

  “I know exactly what you mean Arnie. At your age, you probably feel quite confused as to why you feel this way about people in general. It’s all part of losing your faith I’m afraid.”

  “Losing your faith? But I don’t have faith! I’m not religious. I’ve only ever been to church like, maybe five times in my life…..for four weddings and a…….”

  “DON’T. YOU. DARE - finish that sentence!!” snaps Mervin.

  “A car boot sale?” Arnie says sheepishly.

  “Ugh….” replies Mervin shaking his head in disgust;

  “…..sounds like the worst sequel ever!”

  “No, I’m not talking about your faith in God, I’m talking about your faith in humanity. This is part of the reason you feel the way you do a lot of the time. You are connected you see…..”

  “Connected to what?” asks Arnie;

  “Everything!” exclaims Mervin excitedly as he removed his hand from Arnie’s shoulder and walks towards the front door.

  “Hey Arnie?” says Mervin to get his attention.

  Arnie turns back towards Mervin, still wearing a look of disappointment on his face.

  “Catch!”

  Mervin throws the marble underarm to Arnie, and his knee jerk reaction takes over as he catches it without thinking and immediately resumes looking like a bulldog chewing a wasp as he holds onto the marble which has again increased in size and started glowing.

  After a few seconds Arnie drops the marble which rolls back to Mervin’s feet as it shrinks, hops up and over his boot, and jumps back into his hand like it has a mind of its own. Mervin places the marble back in his pocket as Arnie strides past him confidently, out of the front door and into the mist as if he knows exactly where he is going and exactly what he has to do when he gets there;

  “Come on then. We’ve got things to do!” he says assertively.

  Mervin nods and follows Arnie out into the mist. He taps his pocket and says to himself quietly;

  “I do love my magic marble! It saves so much time! Oh, wait!” he exclaims;

  “You’ll be needing this..”

  Mervin places his left hand in his pocket [where the marble is] and waves the other hand subtly from left to right. Suddenly Lady unfreezes, shakes her head from side to side and walks straight into the kitchen doorframe as she clearly a bit disorientated from the unfreezing process.

  “Lady’s coming with us?” asks Arnie as Lady dozily trots over to them.

  “Yeah. Well we can’t have a…….you, we can’t have you without a bodyguard now can we?”

  Mervin and Arnie both look back towards Lady admiringly who has since made her way back to the decimated cake that Elaine had dropped earlier and proceeds to bury her face in it again!

  “….unless of course there’s food to be had.”

  Lady hoovers up the last few crumbs from the floor. Her happy face is covered in sponge, icing and bits of fluff from the floor. She looks at Arnie, then at Mervin and lets out an almighty dog-burp as she attempts to lick her own face from top to bottom to get to the rest of it.

  “Yeah, tell me about it! A dog’s first love.” says Arnie as Mervin nods in agreement.

  “Come on then girl. We’re going on a trip!” beckons Arnie.

  Lady trots over to Arnie quickly, and then decides to go back into the kitchen.

  “What now?” says Mervin impatiently.

  Lady noses around in a sisal bucket in the corner of the kitchen before producing a pink squeaky toy which looks like a joke set of human teeth.

  “She needs her squeaky teeth!” says Arnie matter-of-factly.

  Arnie and Mervin both look at Lady who is holding the toy in her mouth seemingly grinning back at them both through a perfect set of rubber pearly whites and big rosy red lips.

  As Arnie, Lady and Uncle Mervin walk out of the house together, Arnie stops suddenly and says;

  “Wait! What about the rest of my family?”

  “Oh, right, of course. Don’t worry I’ll take care of it.” replies Mervin as he produces the marble from his pocket for a third time.

  Arnie flinches defensively because of his recent history with the marble and Mervin’s deceptive and tricky disposition.

  “Don’t worry. This time it’s just for your family. You’re safe…..for now.” says Mervin with a wink and a wry smile.

  Mervin closes his eyes, extends his right arm back towards the house while holding the marble in his left hand. He pauses for a moment, and then says in the same grandiose voice he used when they first met;

  “Arnie has gone to,….er……..CHINA! Yes! He has gone to China to study Origami and is safe and sound and will be in touch. Just go on with your daily lives as normal and don’t worry.”

  Arnie watches intently as the marble glows and gently pulsates
and what looks like a golden electric sheet shimmers down from the sky over the entire house.

  “There we are! Now come along young Arnold. Our steed awaits.” says Mervin as he turns and gestures towards the street.

  “Wait!” says Arnie;

  “So, I’m a fourteen year old boy, and only just fourteen at that, who has gone all the way to China to study Origami?”

  “Yup!” replies Mervin confidently.

  “That doesn’t really sound right though does it?” says Arnie.

  “Worry not my young apprentice. I used the Jedi mind trick.” replies Mervin smiling confidently.

  Arnie stares back blankly, so Mervin throws him a disapproving look and continues;

  “I have cast a spell over all inhabitants of the house. This particular little doozy of a spell allows me to put an idea or belief into someone’s head that they will whole heartedly believe until I say otherwise. That golden sheen-thing you can just see over the house is the netting if you like, which keeps the belief in and the magic working. Once the net is broken, the spell is broken! Only a few people in the world are able to actually see physical magic at work so count yourself lucky sunshine.”

  Arnie nods and says;

  “I understand. I just don’t understand how I understand if that makes sense.”

  Mervin laughs and says;

  “Get used to that Arnie. That’s about as much as you can ever hope for where magic is concerned. It is an eternal mystery, an infinite paradox, a…a dreamlike dream,…er, it’s a…….aww, who am I kidding - it’s a bloody pain in the arse is what it is!!”

  Arnie snorts and looks at Mervin questioningly;

  “I know you still have a lot of questions, that’s why I just handed you the Scrying Stone….the marble thing. It has made you more receptive and accepting of these things. It has made you calm. One of these would have come in handy a few hundred years ago I can tell you. I found this one in a mountain temple in Nepal a while back. But, anyway look – let’s get moving and I’ll explain more on the way.”

  Arnie nods and continues to walk out of the front gate and into the mist with this strange old man claiming to be his Uncle.

  “So, you’re my Uncle? You must be related to my Dad then? My real Dad I mean?” says Arnie;

  “Yes. We were indeed brothers.” replies Mervin with a strange sombre inflection in his voice which goes un-noticed by Arnie.

  “I’ve never met anyone from my Dad’s side of the family.” continues Arnie with more than a hint of sadness in his voice.

  As they continue on their way out they walk past another couple of frozen people who appear to be walking a frozen dog. As Lady stops to sniff the frozen dogs bum, Arnie asks;

  “So, you froze everyone then? Not just my lot?”

  “Again, not frozen - just moving slowly!” replies Mervin;

  “Right, right. Sorry I keep forgetting. The Dragon’s breath - silly me! But you did make everyone slow down though right? It wasn’t just my family?” continues Arnie;

  “I’m not entirely sure to be honest Arnie. It would appear so wouldn’t it? That’s the thing with magic! You’ll never fully understand it and you’ll never be able to completely control it as such, [not even me], but there is room to accept it and to work alongside it. You have to establish an equilibrium with it, and most importantly you have to respect it. The biggest mistake any practitioner of magic can make is to think he or she is in control of it and to think they are bigger than it. That, my young Padawan, is a sure path to the dark side!”

  Arnie is taken aback slightly and replies;

  “Riiiight! So respecting the magic – good. Thinking you’re better than it – bad. Got it! So, where are we going anyway?” asks Arnie with a nervous wobble in his voice.

  “We’re going to a place where the very air is thick with history. Your history….sort of. Magic is rife there too which makes it the perfect place for us to train. “

  Arnie looks at Mervin with a blank expression. Mervin then exclaims with great aplomb;

  “We’re going to Tintagel!”

  As Arnie and Mervin walk away from the house and further into the mist, Arnie asks;

  “And Tintagel is ‘sort of’ thick with my history is it?”

  “It is, was, and always will be.” says Mervin mysteriously;

  “Sheeesh!! Any chance of a straight answer for once?” says Arnie impatiently;

  Mervin looks back at Arnie wryly but stays silent;

  “No? Ok fine. I’ll play. So how do we get there from here then? It’s a bloody long walk to Cornwall from here! Are we going to fly or something?” Arnie continues.

  Mervin looks at Arnie with a proud grin on his face and says;

  “Better!”

  “Better than flying?” asks Arnie excitedly as they continue walking.

  Mervin offers nothing more of an explanation however, and just keeps smiling to himself.

  “What then?” asks Arnie again, intrigued by Mervin’s deliberately vague response.

  Mervin stops suddenly;

  “Listen. Do you hear that?” he says excitedly.

  He looks back at Arnie in expectation as he squints and strains to hear whatever it is he is supposed to be hearing…..

  “No, I can’t hear a thi,…..hold on, waaaiiit a minute….”

  Arnie strains his hearing even more. As they both stand motionless in the swirling mists Arnie can just about make out a low grumbling or growling sound in the distance.

  “What is that?” asks Arnie.

  “It sounds like some kind of animal? We’re not riding horses down there are we because last time I rode a horse I wore the wrong underwear and it rode right up into my ar….”

  “It’s not a horse Arnie. Listen closely.” interrupts Mervin.

  Arnie takes position again, squints and listens hard. The grumbling sound has gotten a bit clearer but is still unrecognizable to him.

  “I think it’s getting nearer. What is it?” he asks as the nervousness in his voice becomes more and more apparent.

  As the sound gets closer still, Mervin kneels in front of Arnie and with an obvious sense of self-gratification says to him;

  “That young man,…….is the DRAGON!”

  Mervin stands up, once again towering over Arnie and asks;

  “So what do you think about that?”

  “Th-the D-Dragon???” Arnie stammers back.

  “Yep! My baby!” exclaims Mervin as he gazes affectionately out into the mist;

  “Baby? You have a baby Dragon that sounds like that? Well,…how does an adult Dragon sound then?” asks Arnie;

  As the growling, rumbling sounds gets louder and closer, the mist begins to light up with a fiery orange glow.

  “*Gulp!*……er, does the baby Dragon breath fire?” he continues anxiously.

  “Of course!” replies Mervin excitedly.

  “Don’t worry too much though….” says Mervin as he rubs the top of Arnie’s head condescendingly;

  “….I know how to handle her.”

  “You do?” asks Arnie as the sound gets louder still and the orange glow becomes gradually brighter.

  “Yeah. You’ve just got to keep her regularly serviced.”

  Arnie looks back with a raised eyebrow.

  “Serviced?” he asks;

  “Yeah! I service my baby quite regularly. You’ve got to if you want a smooth ride and for her to be a goer.” replies Mervin:

  Arnie looks at Mervin with a look of complete confusion on his face;

  “You what?” he says;

  The low rumbling, growling sound gets louder still before, all of a sudden a huge, green, scaly, evil looking 4x4 truck bursts out of the mist and screeches to a halt barely an inch in front of Mervin and Arnie.

  “Yeah, you’ve got to keep your vehicle regularly serviced otherwise she just won’t go anymore. It says so in the manual and everything. It’s the most expensive thing to run next to a house you know.”

  “It’s a car?”
says Arnie disconcertedly as he scans it up and down, running his hand over its smooth body and marvelling at the green, scale like paint job, huge bright orange headlights and chrome rims.

  Arnie turns to Mervin and says;

  “The Dragon,…..is your car?”

  Mervin walks to the rear of the vehicle and points to some gold italic writing on the boot which says ‘The Dragon’ and replies;

  “Yep. She’s my baby! And she’s a truck, not a car. Actually she’s a five litre, seven speed truck, and I love her dearly.” he says as he lovingly runs his hand over the Dragon’s backside.

  Suddenly and as if by magic the drivers and passenger side doors both open, disturbing the swirling mist and sending it shooting away from the car before it slowly starts to settle again. Arnie peers into the cab of the truck at the dark-green leather seats and the purple velvet clad interior. He turns back to Mervin and says sarcastically;

  “Classy colour scheme!”

  The truck rev’s it’s engine loudly and backfires which makes Arnie hit the floor for cover.

  “Don’t take the piss Arnie. She doesn’t take very kindly to criticism.” says Mervin seriously.

  “Clearly!” says Arnie as he climbs to his feet and dusts himself down.

  As they both get in the truck, Mervin leans to one side and starts rooting around in his trouser pocket, then the other side but produces nothing. He pats himself down, checking his inside jacket pockets and then huffs and slams his hands on the steering wheel when he produces nothing from them once more.

  “Keys! They’re the bane of my life. Things were so much easier when we rode horses because you didn’t need to stick a key up a horse’s ar…., oh here they are!”

  Mervin pulls the keys out of his pocket.

  “Er, Mervin? The truck is already running. What do you need the keys for?” asks Arnie sheepishly;

  Mervin says nothing, leans over and unlocks a panel on the dashboard which, once unlocked flips over revealing rows of hi-tec looking buttons and switches:

  “Oooooh, pretty…..” says Arnie as he leans forward and his hand gravitates towards the big red button in the centre;

  “STOP!!! DON’T TOUCH THAT!!” bellows Mervin;

  Arnie recoils with shock as Mervin guides Arnie’s hand away from the panel and the red button in particular.